Have you ever heard a name as fantastic as Coffin Colket? There was apparently a period of time in the not-so-distant past where the names Sarah, Emma, William and Coffin were plentiful. OK, well the last one was not AS plentiful as the others, but it’s interesting, no? I have seen it in pictures. Like this one:

Now that my non-migraine-but-still-horrible headache from last night is gone, I’d like to finish telling about my fun weekend in Philly. Sunday was cemetery day. Laurel Hill Cemetery, as a matter of fact. It was lovely. There was conversation about zombies and daylight and whatnot, but I’m truly not creeped out by cemeteries. Nor am I morbidly fascinated by them. Laurel Hill is a historic site full of amazingly beautiful (and yes, sometimes eerie) monuments and tombs and graves and headstones.

Some more info:

Today, Laurel Hill is… an estimated 78-acre tract of land that is divided into three sections—the North, Central and South portions of the Cemetery—that were each founded at different times in the site’s development. Laurel Hill is one of the only cemeteries in the nation to be honored with the designation of National Historic Landmark, a title received in 1998. Countless prominent people are buried at the Cemetery, including many of Philadelphia’s leading industrial magnates. Names such as Rittenhouse, Widener, Elkins and Strawbridge certainly pique local interests, but Laurel Hill also appeals to a national audience. General Meade and thirty-nine other Civil War-era generals reside here, in addition to six Titanic passengers.

So there. I’ll be posting more photos in the future. It’s just hard to choose  — and until I get my ass in gear and do something fun with Flickr or the like and get a slideshow embedded somewhere, I’m doing it the low-tech way, homez.

After walking around the cemetery, taking photos for a few hours, we were pretty damn hungry. I asked Sara where there was a place with many food choices that was open on a Sunday. She said something about Reading Market; the look on my face must’ve said something like, “What are you talking about?” or “Carry on… this name intrigues me…” because she was like, “Have you been?” and I was all like, “No!” and she was like, “OK… we’re going!” And we went to Reading Terminal Market. Since it was a Sunday, the Amish were not there selling fresh homemade ice cream and such.

I did manage, however, to have a delicious turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce sandwich. And buy some linden honey. And observe many many chemists eating lunch and milling about talking ’bout chemistry stuff as the American Chemical Society’s annual convention was taking place at the convention center across the street. In terms of convention food? They WIN. I’ve worked a fair share of conventions and trade shows in my day and the food selection at most convention centers (I include NY, Boston and DC in this grouping) is abysmal.

Once lunch was gotten, we… umm… went to get more gelato at Capogiro. And then walked more. Checked out the fountain and the LOVE sculpture at JFK Plaza. Sadly, I did not get any good photos of this as I left my camera in the car whilst we got lunch and didn’t return to get it between. I took one with my cell phone. Here’s what that produced:

A wee bit grainy. Oh, well.

And then, I basically got packed and went home. I still haven’t recounted the misery of the voyage there and back. It was a bit of a suckfest - BoltBus and Greyhound both. Another day perhaps. Another day.

was telling a friend at work about my weekend in Philly; she remarked (not at all unkindly), “you had quite the hipster weekend!”

I will recount the stories of my annoying travel at a later time; it’s over, I got there and back safely, with my head intact despite a voyage on a Greyhound bus. And a BoltBus. I did both and neither experience was particularly good. At all. ANYWAY.

After arriving in Philadelphia at 10pm on Friday night, that night was spent eating and talking with my friend Sara - and her cat Gus. Here is a small photo of Gus. He’s photo-worthy, despite his more than slightly cranky-whiny demeanor. He was also uncharacteristically friendly towards me this weekend; normally, he does a sort of bipolar thing where he’s all rubbing up on your leg, seeming to say, “PET ME!” - only to turn on you and hiss the moment you pet him. NOT SO, this weekend. I got to pet Fluffy McCrankyPants several times.

Saturday morning, Sara had a haircut at American Mortals. Their motto,”Mullets, not bullets” sort of says it all. Fun cool hipster hair styling. They’re a bumble & bumble salon, so extra points from me. While Sara got her hairs cut, I sat and observed two stylists figure out how to play rummy 500 or ‘Go Fish’, debate the finer points of cribbage (Ben Franklin’s favorite card game, FYI) and we also discussed knitting, childrens’ books (”Everyone Poops”, “The Gas We Pass”). It was good times.

Then, since we were in the area (that area being the Rittenhouse area of Philly, a well-known shopping area), we decided to do some shopping and get lunch somewhere along Walnut Street. A shop that caught my eye immediately was one called Ten Thousand Villages. They’ve a few locations, but we were at the Philly location. The idea behind this store is that it’s all fair trade goods made by village artisans. I’ll post photos tomorrow, but I found a lovely aqua shawl (to replace the sweatshirt I always put on at work when I’m feeling chilly - this is a far better choice professionally) and a chunky blue/turquoise necklace. Not real turquoise, but I’m OK with that.

We stopped at a few other shops including Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, and the farmer’s market at Rittenhouse Square. The Amish were out in full effect with beautiful flowers and produce and brown eggs. I wanted to take photos, but I was conflicted; I wasn’t going to buy any produce since we were going to be walking around for a few more hours and it would get gross and wilted. Knowing that I wouldn’t be buying anything, I felt that photographing their wares would be a bit like theft. Also, I’m just crazy.

After looking at tables and baskets and boxes of beautiful produce and flowers (white eggplant including one that looked like it had a nose, all manner of apples, daisies that looked as though they’d been splattered with red paint - but weren’t), we were pretty damn hungry. Sooo… we walked back down Walnut Street to a lunch spot that had captured our attention later - Maoz Vegetarian. Think of it as Chipotle or Qdoba, but instead of a burrito, it’s falafel on a pita. There’s a fixins’ bar where you can top off your falafel and pita with tasty veggie toppings like pickled baby eggplant, tabouli, cucumbers, tomatoes, cilantro sauce, hummus, tahini, etc. You get a side of Belgian fries (yes, served in the paper cone; yes, served with the large crunchy salt crystals; yes, covered over with foil). Delicious. I’m excited to see that they have locations in NYC.

We did some more walking and it was getting pretty hot. If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen - or get some GELATO. In this case, gelato from artisans. That’s what the sign says, anyway. The artisans part. Not the kitchen part. Capogiro Gelato. They also have a location or two in NYC. They’ve got lovely flavors like fig, thai coconut milk, peach, blackberry, chocolate with caramelized hazelnuts, dulce de leche… incredible. I had the bolded flavors. Not all on Saturday. Nope. We went back for more on Sunday.

With our tummies full, we took the train back to Sara’s region of Philly. Here’s a shot of the Market East station. I love the color. Shellac-alicious red bench against the green tiles. Mmmmm.

That night, we went to Chestnut Hill, a slightly more yuppie shopping area in Philly. We walked around, but most of the shops were closed since it was after five. So we had dinner. Delicious dinner at a Persian restaurant—Shundeez Persian Restaurant, where I ordered Addas Polo, half of a Cornish game hen served with basmati rice, flavored with lentils, onion, raisins, dates, cinnamon and saffron. It was delicious. Absolutely delicious. Amazingly delicious. I will be working to recreate this dish using couscous. Tomorrow.

We also went to the Borders store there. Sara and I met and became friends when we were both working at a Borders store here in NJ (sigh, in our younger days). When walking out of the Borders, we started singing “Memory.” As in, “from the musical Cats“. As in, “immortalized by Miss Barbra Streisand.” We did it.

Thankfully, the streets were pretty empty and we didn’t end up with a string of alley cats following us back to the car. We went back to her apartment and talked to Gus, had some tea, and started watching Vidor’s Gilda (one of my favorite noir films and one about which I wrote a couple of papers in college film courses). But we were tired and I think Sara nodded off, and I soon thereafter. The next thing I knew, it was Sunday morning.

Speaking of Sunday, I’ll write about that tomorrow. This is a long-ass post and Sunday held magical wonders like the Reading Terminal Market and Laurel Hill Cemetery. And Target, but Target is a sort of everyday magical wonder.

Cleaning is boring me. But I have a few more hours to do this before I join my mother and brother for dinner - and then attend an evening of Chinese music and dance at the State Theatre in New Brunswick, NJ, performed by Divine Performing Arts.

I’m also thinking that on Thursday night (the only night I’ll have free this week) I might do some blog redesign - because CHANGE IS GOOD.

Tomorrow is Monday and I’m already tired thinking about what I’ve got to do this week. I’ve got a conference Monday through Wednesday, and business dinners Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday night is rock-climbing, and Friday after work I’m leaving for Philly to visit my friend Sara. This week I will truly be working for the weekend.

Rather than driving to Philly and dealing with weekend traffic, expensive gas and scarce parking, I’m taking BoltBus down, so I’ll have to report back on that experience. It’s $26 round trip from NYC to Philly, which is about $10 less than what it would cost me in gas, but I’m saving myself some stress - I hope. My friend at work has used BoltBus before and said she liked them better than Vamoose; she’s taken both to D.C. - but only Bolt goes to Philly. It’s also got free wi-fi, but I don’t have a laptop. Ah, well. I’ll have to deal with being disconnected for a brief while. Or, I can update via email from my cell phone. There is a way. It’s magical.

Anyway - that’s what I’ve got heading my way. I’ll definitely be bringing my camera since there’s a beautiful old cemetery (Laurel Hill Cemetery) I want to photograph, as well as the Arboretum at the Barnes Foundation, and just the city of Philadelphia itself.

There, now. Thinking about that is making me feel a little less stressed. I’ll practice with my scripts for the conference when I get home tonight. I want to keep part of this weekend to myself.